wine

Our menu features a very personal showcase of dishes inspired by the Cuisine of Vietnam. A rich and diverse cuisine that exhibits a wonderfully intoxicating combination of the raw and the cooked, the hot and the cold, the sweet and sour. The Vietnamese are known for their philosophical balancing of the five elements, wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

Vietnamese dishes include five fundamental taste senses, sour, bitter, sweet, spicy and salty. You will see this principal and sensitivity reflected throughout our menu and wine list.

These dishes cry out for very specific wines and with our Wine List we have selected a short catalogue of gems that we believe will best showcase the food. This is not a ‘greatest hits’ wine list with hundreds of entries that cover all flavours and intensities.

This wine list is focused very closely on the food at Dandelion. Vietnamese food is strongly influenced by the food of China, India and the Khmer, as well as the myriad of sea-going traders that have graced its serpentine coastline. Rather uniquely this fusion of cuisines has then been judiciously molded and refined by the French, resulting what we believe is the most elegant, distinct and certainly most wine friendly of all the Asian cuisines.

You will notice a distinct lack of big, blousy, overly worked whites and heavily tannic reds, we believe these styles are too boisterous for our food. Instead we are strong on fragrant whites, fruit driven reds and even perhaps undervalued wine varietals from regions new and old.

Ultimately the list is full of highly compatible wines, where in combination enhance both the food and the wine experience. As an added bonus you will probably try a new wine and with a bit of luck find new a ‘favourite’.